Minutes for December 18, 2023

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Jones, King, Tejedo-Herrero, Thibeault (chair), Zweibel

Others present: Greg Bump, Lesley Fisher, John Horn, Jennifer Noyes, Julie Scharm

Chair Thibeault called the meeting to order at 1:02 pm.

Rob Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, indicated that the Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER) would meet tomorrow to approve the UW pay plan. The trades contracts will need to go back to the legislature and governor for additional action.

The approval for giving $32 million back to UW System will happen in 2024. UW-Madison will receive $5 million of the $7 million cut back. The legislature will need to enumerate the Engineering building plus the demolition and dorm renovation and pass the tuition reciprocity bill for Minnesota. The reciprocity bill would add $6-7 million to UW-Madison per year.

The 3-year caps on DEI related positions and administrative positions, as well as the 32 DEI positions to be restructured, are across the entire system. UW-Madison has agreed to admit the top 5% of high school graduates based on gpa and ranking.

In regards to the budget model, Vice Chancellor Cramer shared information on the organization of the work for the next semester. There will be a coordinating committee that the Budget Committee chair and chairs of the shared governance groups will serve on. There will be a tuition task force and federal indirect costs task force as well.

The minutes from December 12, 2023, were approved by automatic consent.

Barb King is serving on the Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine search and screen committee. She said applications have been received, and the process of reviewing them will begin soon.

Michell Felber and Jack O’Meara from PROFS reported on the deal between the UW System Board of Regents and the legislature regarding funding items, including the pay plan. Michael Bernard-Donals, PROFS president, gave an interview on For the Record. PROFS will submit a brief statement of support to JCOER.

Bill Karpus, Dean of the Graduate School, discussed the process the task force looking at professional programs was undertaking. They began by putting together a definition, which is currently that professional programs require external accreditation and a license for someone to the do the job. They are exploring whether there is a reason to have a separate body look at professional program academic planning requests and whether there should be different policies governing grad programs and professional programs.

Dean Karpus announced that graduate stipends would increase 14% next year and that transition dollars would be available.

Following up on their conversation with the Provost, the University Committee further discussed the needs of professional degree programs in terms of academic planning. The Provost has suggested this be examined both to see if there should be a specific committee that looks at professional program approvals and if there may be policies needed specifically for professional programs. There is approximately 1 request per year to the UAPC for professional programs. Academic planning for professional degree programs is currently split with some programs going through UAPC approval and others going through GFEC prior to UAPC. Programs housed within the Graduate School use the GFEC process. Moving any programs out of the Graduate School would be difficult as the entity that takes them would need to be able to process degrees. That is one reason programs likely ended up in the Graduate School since they are already set up to do this.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin thanked the University Committee for their work during the semester. Commencement took place on Sunday, December 17 with over 7500 people in attendance.

The Wisconsin Tribal Education Promise was announced earlier today. The chancellor has been working with the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council on this for the past year. Students need to be enrolled members of one of the 11 federally recognized American Indian Tribes in Wisconsin. For undergraduates, the program covers the full cost of attendance. They are also piloting a tuition program for MD and JD degrees. The program will be available to currently enrolled students starting next year.

The University Committee and the chancellor discussed the first amendment and free speech issues at universities in light of the recent congressional testimony from three private university presidents.

Thibeault adjourned the meeting at 3:16 pm.